Sometimes the first step in a cyberattack isn’t code. It’s a click. A single login involving one username and password can give an intruder a front-row seat to everything your business does online.
For small and mid-sized companies, those credentials are often the easiest target. According to MasterCard, 46% of small businesses have dealt with a cyberattack, and almost half of all breaches involve stolen passwords. That’s not a statistic you want to see yourself in.
This guide looks at how to make life much harder for would-be intruders. The aim isn’t to drown you in tech jargon. Instead, it’s to give IT-focused small businesses a playbook that moves past the basics and into practical, advanced measures you can start using now.
Do you ever feel like your technology setup grew without you really noticing? One day you had a laptop and a few software licenses, and now you’re juggling dozens of tools, some of which you don’t even remember signing up for.
A recent SaaS management index found that small businesses with under 500 employees use, on average, 172 cloud-based apps. And many don’t have a formal IT department to keep it all straight.
That’s a lot of moving parts. Without a plan, it’s easy for those parts to work against each other. Systems don’t talk, people improvise workarounds, and money gets spent in ways that don’t actually help the business grow. That’s where an IT roadmap comes in.
Picture someone in the middle of a presentation, with the room (or Zoom) fully engaged, when their laptop freezes. You can almost hear the collective groan. That tension sticks, and if it happens often, it doesn’t just derail a meeting. It chips away at how people feel about their jobs.
That’s why IT isn’t just about servers, software, or “keeping the lights on” anymore. It’s about the day-to-day experience employees have every time they log in, click a link, or try to share a file. When those moments are smooth, morale lifts. When they’re not, it shows, both in productivity and in retention.
The numbers are telling. Deloitte found that organizations with robust digital employee experiences see a 22% jump in engagement, and...